I have a monthly column now in gamesindustry.biz as well as eurogamer.net, and the deadlines coincide. So I’m writing them as companion pieces where I can. This month, they both have to do with the relationships between games and the real world. The Rhetorical Effects of System Design, and Toilets Games In Difficult Times Meanwhile, I’ve been Read more

When you hear the phrase ‘choices in games’, what do you think of? It might be this: or this: or indeed this: But equally it might be this: or this: Lots of choices! Where are you going to send your crew, what are you going to repair, should you teleport your boarding party home and Read more

A couple of weeks ago I was dithering over to run a Kickstarter in November 2016, before my BioWare contract, or September 2017 once I’d finished at BioWare. An earlier KS would mean I would know where I stood with funding, and could get a second shot if it failed; a later KS would be Read more

BEHIND THE WORLD IS THE MANSUS. ITS CORRIDORS ARE THE ANGLES OF TIME. I spent my first month out of Failbetter building an alpha Javascript prototype of an experimental game, CULTIST SIMULATOR, to test out some mechanics and lore. My eerily insightful playtesters identified a lot of things that worked and a lot that could work Read more

This is a post about the Cultist Simulator systems, and also why you shouldn’t stay too deep in a bunker when you’re working enthusiastically on an idea. That’s something I’ve forced myself to learn: open production in a nutshell. But it can be difficult to remember. My strong inclination is to bunker up. I’m an introvert who ran a company Read more

Someone asked me on Twitter if I could share the task list for Cultist Simulator. This made me a bit nervous, but things that make you nervous are good. So sod it, here’s the whole thing. If someone finds it useful, great! Cultist Simulator Live Task List A note, and two warnings. The note: Read more

This is devlog zero for Cultist Simulator. It’s not an announcement or anything: it won’t get any press cos everyone’s off at Develop, and, man, I don’t want press on the screenie below anyway. But I should talk out my ideas in public, and this is something to link to next time I need to explain Read more